Spirited Away 2001
The list's only animated film and, per Sean, the one Miyazaki slot Amanda had reserved for whichever of his the century allowed. Chihiro, a 10-year-old moving to a new town, watches her parents gorge themselves and turn into pigs at an abandoned amusement park, then works to free them across a spirit world of soot sprites, No-Face, a river-spirit dragon, and the witch Yubaba. Released in Japan in 2001, it became the highest-grossing film in Japanese history (unseated around 2020 by a Demon Slayer film); John Lasseter and Michael Eisner backed the dubbed U.S. release and it won Best Animated Feature. Sean frames it as a bridge, the film that helps open the door to Parasite winning Best Picture two decades later, and both hosts read it as hand-drawn animation at its peak: every frame full of background, foreground, and life, dream-logic that never insists on its own rules.
